 We continue on with Chapter 3, Miracles as True Perception. I have stated that the basic concepts referred to in this course are not matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts cannot be understood in terms of opposites. It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness or everything and nothing as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false. It is essential that you realize your thinking will be erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other side is made. A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness, however, is impossible. No one has ever lived who has not experienced some light and some thing. No one, therefore, is able to deny truth totally, even if he thinks again. Innocence is not a partial attribute. It is not real until it is total. The partly innocent are apt to be quite foolish at times. It is not until their innocence becomes a viewpoint with universal application that it becomes wisdom. Innocent or true perception means that you never misperceive and always see truly. More simply, it means that you never see what does not exist and always see what does. When you lack confidence in what someone will do, you are testing to your belief that he is not in his right mind. This is hardly a miracle-based frame of reference. It also has the disastrous effect of denying the power of the miracle. The miracle perceives everything as it is. If nothing but truth exists, right-minded seeing cannot see anything but perfection. I have said that only what God creates or what you create with the same will has any real existence. This, then, is all the innocent can see. They do not suffer from distorted perception. You are afraid of God's will because you have used your own mind, which he created in the likeness of his own, to miscreate. The mind can miscreate only when it believes it is not free. An imprisoned mind is not free because it is possessed or held back by itself. It is therefore limited, and the will is not free to assert itself. To be one is to be of one mind or will. When the will of the sonship and the father are one, their perfect accord is heaven. Nothing can prevail against the son of God who commends his spirit into the hands of his father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep and remembers its creator. All sense of separation disappears. The son of God is part of the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity itself is one. There is no confusion within its levels because they are of one mind and of one will. This single purpose creates perfect integration and establishes the peace of God. Yet this vision can be perceived only by the truly innocent because their hearts are pure. The innocent defend true perception instead of defending themselves against it. Understanding the lesson of the Atonement, they are without the wish to attack and therefore they see truly. This is what the Bible means when it says, When he shall appear or be perceived, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. The way to correct distortions is to withdraw your faith in them and vest it only in what is true. You cannot make untruth true. If you are willing to accept what is true in everything you perceive, you let it be true for you. Truth overcomes all error and those who live in error and emptiness can never find lasting solace. If you perceive truly, you are cancelling out misperceptions in yourself and in others simultaneously. Because you see them as they are, you offer them your acceptance of their truth so they can accept it for themselves. This is the healing that the miracle induces. And from the workbook, lesson number 17, I see no neutral things. This idea is another step in the direction of identifying cause and effect as it really operates in the world. You see no neutral things because you have no neutral thoughts. It is always the thought that comes first, despite the temptation to believe that it is the other way around. This is not the way the world thinks, but you must learn that it is the way you think. If it were not so, perception would have no cause and would itself be the cause of reality. In view of its highly variable nature, this is hardly likely. In applying today's idea, say to yourself with open eyes, I see no neutral things because I have no neutral thoughts. Then look about you, resting your glance on each thing you note long enough to say, I do not see a neutral blank because my thoughts about blank are not neutral. For example, you might say, I do not see a neutral wall because my thoughts about walls are not neutral. I do not see a neutral body because my thoughts about bodies are not neutral. As usual, it is essential to make no distinctions between what you believe to be animate or inanimate, pleasant or unpleasant. Regardless of what you may believe, you do not see anything that is really alive or really joyous. That is because you are unaware as yet of any thought that is really true and therefore really happy. Three or four specific practice periods are recommended and no less than three are required for maximum benefit, even if you experience resistance. However, if you do, the length of the practice period may be reduced to less than the minute or so that is otherwise recommended. I see no neutral things. So as we gaze around, we are allowing the idea that we do not see anything as completely neutral. We are praying and calling upon the Holy Spirit to bring us a different way of seeing with the admission that everything that we are perceiving is being given a meaning, a false meaning. And this false meaning is one of judgment. If I have judgment in my mind, I must see a judgment world. I must see infragmentation. And so this idea is another way of opening to the meaninglessness of everything that is perceived. I cannot see anything, perceive anything clearly. If I continue to make distinctions, if I continue to make categories, levels, degrees, gravations, it is important that I use the lesson of today to admit that I see no neutral things. If the thoughts that I think I think and the images I think I see are the same and if my thoughts that I think I think are not neutral, not neutral at all, then the images I see are not neutral at all. This idea today follows from the previous idea that I have no neutral thoughts. I have no idle thoughts. They are merely true or false. And these images are merely true or false. But these thoughts and these images are not neutral. They either extend the truth or they multiply illusions. And so I can't begin to talk about neutrality in perceiving. If the thoughts that are underneath my perceptions are not real, I have to be open to be shown a new way of perceiving first and then beyond that vision, the vision of Christ, pure light. And so, in faith, I practice the lesson of today. I see no neutral things.